The Earth Observatory: NASA's new Web environment for learning about Earth

To help improve communications between its Earth scientists and the general public, NASA recently unveiled the Earth Observatory, a Web site where the public can learn about global climatic and environmental change. The Earth Observatory presents, in lay terms, stories, images, and animations that illustrate the complexities of Earth system science, as well as NASA's use of satellites and remote sensing data to study our home planet. The site's URL is given (http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov). The new Web site is sponsored by the Earth Observing System's (EOS) Project Science Office; Landsat 7, Terra, and Aqua Project Science Offices; and the Goddard DAAC (Distributed Active Archive Center). It is designed to take advantage of new, rapidly-emerging Internet technologies for distributing multimedia information resources via the World Wide Web. As such, the Earth Observatory features real remote sensing data that show key phenomena of change on global and regional scales, as well as background and contextual information written in lay terms. The Earth Observatory web site was launched on April 29, 1999. The level of useage of this site is described.